


Me

by CrumblingAsh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, First Meetings, M/M, Minor Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Torture, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Self-objectification, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've both got busted minds, pieces of themselves that float around in their heads, unattached and independent of each other. Shadows inside that are capable of reaching out and destroying everything they want and love. It might not be the best thing to brag about having in common with someone, but, well ... it works.</p><p>(a collection of one-shot stories and drabbles featuring Bucky and Bruce, in any universe, in any situation)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nightmare (Post CA:WS)

* * *

 

“What’s the difference between a nightmare and reality, doc?”

 

The man beside Bucky doesn’t start, didn’t twitch - from the first time, whether he came out of sleep with a whimper or in silence, Bruce Banner has always known when Bucky is awake. It should be unnerving, dangerous, to be read so well so quickly, to be read so well at all. (But in this tower, where everyone was so free with their touches, and in this bed, where caress was expected, this man doesn’t cross him, doesn’t touch him at all, shares his body heat and soulful eyes and asks for nothing in return).

 

“The obvious answer would be that you wake up from nightmares,” Banner offers, and chuckles bitterly when Bucky snorts, because yeah, it’s the obvious answer. It’s the given answer, it’s the answer anyone who hasn’t lived a nightmare believes in, stamps as the truth. He‘s heard it enough times, told himself it enough times, that he can taste the lie over the staleness of artificial air.

 

Banner shifts, rolls to his side to face him, and Bucky meets his gaze easily. Easily, because it is easy, for a reason he’s stopped straining to identify, when he still flinches from Steve’s earnest, protective looks. Banner … doesn’t look at him like he would break the world to save him. There’s no angel pulling a soul from Hell.

 

“If you wake up and they’re not hurting you,” Banner says quietly, “then you’re not in a nightmare anymore.”

 

He looks at him like he’s walking barefoot on the brimstone right there with him.

 

“How do you know if they’re not hurting you?” 

 

They sigh, heavy punches, in near unison for truth.

 

“You wait.”


	2. It (Post CA:WS)

* * *

 

 

 

Bruce does not visually recognize the dull shine in the eyes of Steve’s best friend.

He had never had a mirror to see what it had looked like.

But he thinks, maybe, that he can hear familiarity in the shallow, uneven breaths that “Bucky” is taking from the doorway of the kitchen, the stuttered rhythm of it almost identical to the lullaby Bruce had played for himself with his own chest every single night that he had spent strapped to the bed in the army’s lab – _**in,** don’t hurt anyone, **out** , don’t hurt me, **in** , calm down, it’s fine, **out,** stop, easy, you’re okay, **in** , deserve this_–

“Do you want to try some spaghetti?” Steve isn’t stupid or naïve, but this isn’t shellshock, and unlike in the war, there isn’t mission after mission to occupy Barnes’ fractured mind, keep him from falling the shallow distance into himself. Bruce knows Steve is trying, but he doesn’t understand this, not in the way he needs to in order to work with it. “Clint made it before he left, Buck, it’s pretty good. Or if you want something light, there’s some salad in fridge, I could make you one? Do you want to sit?”

It’s just the three of them in the kitchen, falling under the silence Steve creates in hopeful expectation of an answer.

But Barnes gives no outward reaction to the bombardment of questions. Instead, his breaths trip into a new gear – _**in** , do not hurt anyone, **out,** do not hurt anyone, **in** , do not hurt, **out,** please don’t hurt!_

Because, because –

“Hey, Bucky, it’s okay.” Again, Steve is not stupid or naïve, but while he can pick on the other man’s panicked cues, he doesn’t understand in practice what he knows in theory. His voice is soft and his stance is nonthreatening and it’s not the right way. Because- “How about just a drink to start, yeah? Something simple? Some water or juice or-.”

Because-

“Steve, _stop_.” Bruce snaps, surprising himself as much as everyone else. The blonde whirls on him with a startled, distressed expression – it’s become an all-too familiar sight since the fall of SHIELD – his jaw clenching in a battle between Captain America and Steve Rogers. A spare part of Bruce’s mind wonders where Tony is.

“He hasn’t eaten since the night before last.” Steve says it lowly, as if in consideration, as if Barnes’ ears aren’t just sensitive as his own. Not stupid or naïve, but the trauma he has is different than what is going on inside of Barnes’ head, and there are too many rocks that Bruce knows Steve can’t see. “I just – maybe he doesn’t like the food here, maybe he wants to say that and doesn’t know how. With the con- _damn!_ -conditioning, maybe-.” He turns back toward Barnes. “There are some MREs in the cupboard behind you, you can get one of those if you don’t want the spaghetti. Or I can get one. Do you want that instead?”

When Barnes’ jaw clenches, it’s not a fight between Barnes and the Winter Soldier. It’s something boiled, rolled over and exposed – and Bruce feels something thin pull taut and snap in his body.

“You’re freaking it out!” He hisses.

Steve freezes.

Barnes’ eyes, still dull and familiar, snap to his.

Because choices are dangerous. Decisions are bad.

Bruce grabs one of the garlic bread rolls from the tray on the table, still hot enough to instantly warm his skin, and steps forward.

“Too many choices right now,” he continues quietly. He doesn’t know if Steve wants to balk at his approach toward Barnes, if he’s angry, but for his part, he isn’t moving. And that’s exactly what Bruce needs; Steve not moving. Because Barnes is looking right at Bruce, no spark in his eyes, but pupils focused like a soul-sucking vacuum of need, a touch too wide and not at all there. “If you ask it a question, you could be testing it. If you ask it a question and you’re being nice, you’re probably trying to trick it.” He stops in front of the deadened soldier.

He’s not a psychologist. It isn’t his training. There is nothing in the world the qualifies him to even be talking to this man, let alone interacting with him.

“Sit,” he demands, and Barnes immediately falls to the floor, eyes still trained on him.

Behind him, Steve makes the smallest of wounded sounds. Hopefully loud enough for JARVIS to pick up on the cue to call for Tony.

Taking a deep, painful breath, Bruce lowers himself to the floor as well, not looking away from the gaze holding his. He rips the roll in half and thrusts a piece forward.

“Take this and eat it.”

Barnes immediately reaches out and snags the bread, his fingers barely touching the skin of Bruce’s palm before they’re gone again.

The chewing is methodical – there’s nothing in Barnes’ expression or even in his body language that implies he’s tasting the food he’s eating. That he even knows what it is.

“Sometimes it’s hard to remember.” He says it mostly for Steve, but also for Barnes. Words can sometimes be recalled, after. Or at least, sometimes they can for Bruce. “Sometimes you wake up from sleeping, or from thinking too deeply, and you’re not what comes out. It does. And it isn’t a person; it doesn’t get to have thoughts or things or wants. It only has what it’s told.” He waits a few seconds after Barnes swallows, and then holds out the other piece. “Take this and eat it,” he repeats, and it’s snatched away, too.

“I don’t understand,” Steve whispers. “I don’t … he’s getting better. He knows he’s not a wea… Bucky knows he’s human, Bruce.”

That almost makes Bruce laugh, because Steve understands more than he thinks he does. The only difference is the word he uses for himself.

“It’s not Barnes right now, Steve.” Barnes is chewing this piece a little slower, not enough to be obvious, but it’s apparent that he’s realized Bruce doesn’t have any more food on him. “It’s not anything but a thing. Throw me another roll.”

“Bruce-.”

He doesn’t look away from Barnes. “Trust me.”

The bread lands perfectly in his lap; Barnes hadn’t even tracked it. This time, Bruce rips it into four pieces, and holds one out between his fingers.

“Take this and eat it.”

There’s still no spark of recognition in his eyes as he does exactly as he’s told.

_I’m not this kind of doctor,_ Bruce thinks. And then, _fuck it.  
_

“They ate in front of me.” This time, it’s for Barnes, who doesn’t so much as blink at being directly addressed. “They didn’t tell me I wasn’t human, they didn’t tell me I didn’t deserve something – they didn’t tell me anything. But they ate in front of me. They’d stop with whatever test they were running, bring in a little table and some chairs, and they’d eat their lunch or their dinner from exactly where I could easily see them. I was tired, I was hurt, and they were laughing and talking as if I wasn’t even in the room. They’d have steak and potatoes, or a rich-smelling soup and biscuits, or something that was sinfully fried and mouth-watering. One time, Gen- someone had lobster, and it smelled so delicious I wanted to cry. It must have been a weekend. Take this and eat it.” He holds out another bit of roll. “Sometimes, in the middle of the meal, they’d ask me if I wanted some of whatever they were eating. They’d smile, and call me Bruce, and they’d say that if I didn’t like it, they’d get me something else. Anything at all. Because I was being so good. Because I looked like I could use it. In the beginning, I would always answer.”

He doesn’t know if it’s a trick of the light, or if something moves in Barnes’ eyes, but it isn’t there when he blinks.

“When they were doing their tests, they never talked to me. Over me, about me, but never to me. Unless it was to tell me to do something. Those times, they never used my name. ‘Move the right arm’, ‘blink the left eye only’, ‘take a deep breath, stick out the tongue’. That sort of thing. And then they’d go right back to talking like I wasn’t there. I’d ask questions and it was like I didn’t exist. They’d touch me however they wanted, move me how they wanted – they’d use a series of hits and shocks to get my limbs to jerk, move without my command, like my body wasn’t mine. Take this and eat it.” The third piece.

“Bruce?” Tony’s voice is low, careful at his back; he doesn’t start at the suddenness of it and neither does Barnes, who still hasn’t looked away. “You good, buddy?”

“I’ve got it, Tony,” he confirms easily, watching the man in front of him slowly chew.

“Steve and I are going to go into the media room, catch a flick, wind down a bit.” If there’s a protest to the billionaire’s words, it’s not audible. But at least now Steve’s taken care of. “See ya.”

He doesn’t answer.

Barnes’ throat bobs as he swallows.

Bruce had never had a mirror, when he’d been strapped down in the lab. The months after his escape, he’d never thought to look into one. What he sees in Barnes’ eyes feels like a reflection, an answer to something he’s missed.

He could say more. He could talk about how they’d bring the food he’d asked for in, bring it straight to his lips, and then pull it away, teasing him like one would tease a dog. He could talk about how they’d started hitting him when he’d made a noise – a pop on the jaw, a crack across his ribs. He could talk about how silent he’d started to become when someone would come into the room, how he’d stop looking at them, how he’d do everything they’d asked without hesitation, trapped somewhere else in his head between what was left of **_Bruce_** , **_Robert,_** and the **_Hulk_**. How the rage of his monster had faded away for so long on that table because there’d been nothing left to be defended. Just a thing. That he understands that that’s where Barnes is right now, stuck somewhere between **_Sergeant Barnes_** and ** _Bucky_** and the **_Winter Soldier_**.

Just a thing.

There are days when Bruce wakes up an it, too. No one ever sees.

He takes a deep breath, but it trips right back out on a violent, shuddering exhale. His heart rate doubles for a few beats, and inside his head, the Hulk growls at the faint touches of the repressed memories.

Something warm hits his knee, soft but not quite careful. Barnes’ right hand, palm down and relaxed. Barnes’ eyes are the color of a storm over an angry sea, and they look at him without expectation, just an unspoken faith in his answers. His breathing is even, subtle, no hidden message or self-soothing tune to recognize.

It’s incredibly painful, and Bruce can see why Steve falls all over himself try to give him everything he could possibly want.

He twirls the last piece of roll in his hand and then holds it out.

“Take this,” he urges gently, the Hulk grumbling as he settles. “And eat it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Anonymous asked: Could you write anything Bruce/Bucky? Them bonding over anger or sharing a safehouse or really just anything?_


	3. Names (Modern Setting AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt: Two miserable people meet at a wedding.**
> 
>  
> 
> **(This features mostly Steve & Bucky friendship with Bucky introspection. Unrequited Bucky/Steve, minor Steve/Tony, the very very beginnings of Bruce/Bucky, and implied unrequited Tony/Bruce) **

* * *

 

 

He’s twenty-four-years-old when Natasha tells him, “You don’t have to go.”

But like fuck he’s missing Stevie’s wedding.

 

* * *

 

 

James Buchanan Barnes becomes “Bucky” Barnes at ten-years-old, three days after he saves scrawny nine-year-old Steven Grant Rogers from getting beat up during recess by Gilmore Hodges when the teacher isn’t looking.

“You don’t like your name?” Steve wonders aloud, blue eyes wide despite the purple bruise on his face. James rolls his own. “Who doesn’t like their name?”

“Do you know how many kids are named James at this school?” he demands, frowning. “All the teachers just call me “Barnes”. It’s annoying.” And it is. It’s almost as if he isn’t as important as the guy who does get called James. Or the one they call Jimmy – or the one who sits next to him in math that the teacher calls Jim (ugh. Jim. What an old person’s name). There’s even a kid named James who’s a few grades up who goes by the nickname “Rhodey”, and another one who goes by his middle name – Logan – which is completely unfair because none of his teachers have ever asked if there’s another name he’d like to go by. He’s sure he can think of something cool.

“You’re pouting,” Steve observes. James’ frown deepens.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yeah you are.” Steve grins, and then audibly hisses as the movement obviously makes his bruise twinge.

James’ eyes immediately seek out Hodges – the nasty little loser is on the other side of the playground, tossing wary glances in their direction outlined by a darker bruise of his own. Good.

“You can go by ‘Bucky’, if you want. That’d work.”

His attention flies back to Steve.

“…What?” He asks dumbly.

Steve immediately looks uncertain. “I mean, your middle name is ‘Buchannan’, which you said you think is boring, but you can nickname off of that – Buchanan. Bucky. Maybe?” The kid scuffs the toe of his shoe into the dirt, looking down at it. “I mean, it’s just an idea. You don’t have to use it. I guess it sounds a little dumb.”

He’s not wrong – it does sound dumb. Really, really dumb. Bucky.

But James has never had a nickname before – not a real one, anyway, not one given to him by-

“Are we friends, Steve?” he asks bluntly. The blonde’s head shoots back up, surprise on his face.

“Um, do you want to be?” He returns.

James thinks about it – the closest he’s come to having a real friend had been Brock Rumlow last year (but that had ended after he’d found Brock stealing the Pokémon cards his dad had given him, in a fight that had landed them both in the principal’s office and ended with them never speaking again). He’s noticed that Steve doesn’t really seem to hang around anyone else, either, which is how Hodges (James shoots him another glare that makes the kid turn around) had gotten hold of him in the first place. Steve is quiet, and nice, and he’d actually yelled at James for punching Hodges (“I had it under control!”) before thanking him and offering to grab some ice from the nurse for his hand.

Steve’s weird.

“Yeah, I wanna be friends.” His face breaks into a grin at the sight of the pure happiness that radiates from Steve’s. Steve, his friend. His friend Steve. Which means- “And I don’t think Bucky sounds all that dumb.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees softly, and thrusts out his hand. “Hi, Bucky.”

And it’s just like that.

 

* * *

 

 

James Barnes and Steve Rogers become BuckyandSteve – sitting next to each other in class and refusing to participate in gym unless they’re on the same team and hanging out at every recess (and study hall, once they’re older). They’re essentially one person, a matched set, stubbornly joined at the hip and completely unapologetic for it.

It annoys the teachers until it doesn’t, until phone calls home and parent-teacher meetings don’t get them anywhere because their parents think they’re good for each other, until it becomes clear that if they put one in one class and the other one in a different class, they end up sneaking around and ending up in the same room anyway.

“What’d you do?” Bucky whispers to Steve as he slips silently into the desk behind Steve. They’re thirteen-years-old, two months shy of getting the _hell_ out of middle school, and Steve is sitting in In School Suspension, dutifully working on his homework as the assigned teacher does Sudoku at her desk. He doesn’t jump at Bucky’s sudden appearance “Rumor has it you punched Mr. Schmidt in the face and knocked out four of his teeth. I _know_ that didn’t happen, you can’t throw a punch for shit.”

“Fight me,” Steve whispers back – he doesn’t turn to look at Bucky, but the smile can be heard. “And no, you’re right, I didn’t punch him. Glad the school thinks I’m a badass, though. That’ll boost the reputation.”

Bucky snorts – there’s literally nothing that will boost either of their reputations in this school – and gives the leg of Steve’s chair a little kick. “Spill,” he hisses. A kid a few tables over looks up, eyes stoner-red as he blinks at them, and then looks back down.

“It’s Schmidt,” Steve answers with a shrug. “We were covering Nazi Germany, and he told us we didn’t need our books today, because he was going to teach us something the books wouldn’t. And then – and then, get this, Bucky – he starts spouting off about how Hitler had had the right ideas, that an Aryan race is the best thing we can do for this world, and started listing off all the “kinds of people we should purge ourselves of” – I honestly thought Luke was going to jump up and pummel him, and Luke really can’t afford another fighting strike, so I stood up first-.”

“Of course you did,” Bucky mutters, grinning.

“-and told him that he was an arrogant, self-assured asshole who can’t even properly educate a room of twenty-five junior high students, let alone have any sort of idea what it would take to lead a country to a Golden Age, and that anyone who thinks killing off any group of people is the right thing to do clearly needs to have their brain examined, because obviously something isn’t working right. And by anyone, that I meant him.”

He sounds utterly unremorseful.

Bucky whistles lowly, and then reaches forward to clap a heavy hand on Steve’s slim shoulder.

“Good job, Stevie,” he praises, and Steve twists his head to give him a pleased smile.

“Mr. Barnes,” the teacher calls out, making them both jump. “If you’re going to be in here, I expect you to do something other than talk.” She doesn’t even look up from her puzzle.

Steve slips him a few sheets of paper and a pen, shaking a little in his laughter. “Yes ma’am,” Bucky responds. And spends the rest of Steve’s detention playing Hang Man with him.

(He’s angry, of course, that Steve had gotten detention and that Schmidt hadn’t been punished. Before he can do anything about it, though (and he would have, he’d have just had to think of something), a physical fight breaks out between Schmidt and Mr. Lehnsherr during lunch the next day. Unlike Steve, Mr. Lehnsherr actually does knock out four of Schmidt’s teeth, and keeps a smug look on his face even as the police take him away. Schmidt goes to the hospital and doesn’t come back, so Bucky will accept it).

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky comes out as bisexual to Steve when Steve’s fourteen and Bucky’s fifteen and Steve finds him on the roof of the apartment building.

“Your dad’s yellin’ loud enough to disturb Mrs. Alder on the first floor,” Steve comments, plopping down beside him on the cement. The sky is overcast, the air a little chilly with a looming threat of rain – Steve won’t be able to sit out here for long, and Bucky isn’t anywhere near ready to go back inside. “You don’t have to talk about it, but if you have any stuff you wanna say, I suppose I can lend you an ear. Just one, though.”

The joke falls flat. In the silence, Bucky can almost hear his father’s muffled anger.

“…Buck?” Steve bops their shoulders together lightly.

“I kissed Dottie Underwood last week,” he says hollowly. “Remember, under the bleachers during archery lessons in gym? Her lipstick got on my shirt.”

“Okay?” Steve sounds confused – he should. Bucky had told him about it almost immediately in deep detail. “Is that why your dad’s mad? The uh, the lipstick?”

Bucky barks out a sharp laugh – he’s not thinking enough to be worried as he says, “No. He’s mad because he caught me and Wade Wilson neckin’ in the downstairs laundry room.”

Steve stills, and Bucky’s brain wakes enough to feel a brief burst of panic, because this is _Steve_ and there’s always been _Steve_ and maybe he should’ve just kept his damn mouth _shut-_

“Are you dating him?” His friend’s voice is flat. Bucky hangs his head, despair in his gut.

“No. No, we’re not – I’m not interested in that. It was just a “you’re hot, I’m hot, it’s boring here so let’s make out until the dryers are done” sorta thing.” He has a hickey below his ear. His father had been even more livid at the sight of it.

“But you liked it? Like you did with Dottie?”

If it starts raining now, Steve will have to leave, and Bucky will be alone and wet, and it’ll be poetic. “Yeah.”

“And no one got hurt? Consensual all the way around?”

That almost makes Bucky laugh – classic Stevie Rogers, making sure everything’s on the up-and-up. It gets stuck in his throat because the tone is still flat. “Yeah. Of course it was. Of course it was.”

Steve’s quiet for a beat, still tense against Bucky’s side, and then like a flip’s been switched, he sags into Bucky, comfortable as anything. “Then, Bucky, I love your dad, but he can shut the hell up, because there ain’t anything wrong with that. If he has a problem with it, he can take it up with me.”

The relief is immediate – starts out numb before it completely eats him up. “Oh, my God, Stevie.” He shakes – Steve’s thin arm wrapping tightly around his shoulder – but he doesn’t cry. That’s just the rain – _hell, Rogers, get inside._

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky doesn’t realize he’s in love with Steve until they’re both sixteen, and Steve’s getting ready for a date with _the_ Peggy Carter.

“This is a pity date,” Steve moans, eyeing himself in the mirror with entirely too much criticism. “Or worse, I ambushed her and she didn’t know how to say no.” He twists enough to level Bucky with the stupid puppy-dog stare that always makes him want to punch a wall. “I ambushed Peggy, Bucky. I _made_ her say yes to me. She’s going to be so uncomfortable and it’s all my fault.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Steve.” They’re in Steve’s room, clothes strewn about from an hour of frantic attempts for the blonde to find ‘something that doesn’t make me look like a sickly hospital patient, Buck!’, and Bucky’s sprawled across Steve’s bed playing Pokémon on Steve’s old GameBoy while his friend worries. “If you had freaked her out, she wouldn’t have offered to pick you up, now would she?”

And hadn’t that been a sight? Gorgeous, classy senior Peggy Carter giving Steve a dazzling smile as he’d stammered out his request for a date – the eagerness of her acceptance had obviously been lost amidst his nerves, the punk.

“…Pity date, then.” If possible, Steve sounds even more dejected. Bucky’s eyes dart back up from the screen of pixel pocket monsters in alarm, watching as Steve curls his shoulders to draw into himself. “What the hell was I thinkin’?”

“Stevie,” Bucky starts to warn, but Steve slumps down to the floor, hunching in on himself, looking incredibly, impossibly small.

Bucky immediately jumps off the bed and falls beside him, his chest seizing. He _hates_ it when Steve gets like this. “Stop it right now, Rogers,” he snarls, but as usual, when Steve is like this, he’s unheard.

“I ain’t nothin’ a girl would look at unless she had to,” Steve says faintly. He’s still watching the mirror. “I’m too skinny, too short, my spine is crooked as hell. My eyes are too big for my face. And even if she _did_ want to look at all that?” He scoffs. “I get sick – _all the damn time_. I have more pills in my medicine cabinet than a pharmaceutical factory has in stock. What’s she gonna do when I have to take my insulin? Or when I can’t eat at the place she picks because of my allergies? And, hell, my _inhaler? No one_ likes inhalers, Bucky.”

Fuck this.

“I like inhalers,” he says vehemently. Steve’s eyes dart to his in the mirror. “Tiny little tube with a mouth piece that helps keep you breathin’ and alive? Totally a fan of that shit. Love it. _Also_.” He scoots on the floor until he’s behind Steve, bracketing his friend’s hips with his legs, clapping his hands around both of Steve’s arms. “Take it from your extremely honest best friend – you’re fucking _hot_ , Rogers.” Steve’s face blooms a vibrant shade of red that would make Bucky laugh if laughing wouldn’t completely ruin everything he’s trying to prove.

“You’re just saying that _because_ you’re my best friend,” Steve grumbles, but he leans back slightly so that he’s resting against Bucky, still tense, but it means the self-loathing is starting to abate. Bucky can write a book on all things Steve Rogers.

It would probably take an extensive, in-depth series to achieve full impact.

“No, I’m saying that because it’s true,” he corrects, shaking him a little. Their eyes meet in the reflection of the mirror, Steve’s still doubtful. “You’re all big blue eyes and soft blonde hair and long limbs, Stevie, and your face isn’t exactly hard to look at. She’s gonna spend all night being dazzled by that little smile thing that you do.”

As if on reflex, it cues up on Steve’s face. Bucky grins in return. “And if Carter – or anyone – gets turned off by the meds you use to keep you _alive_ , then she’s not worth it. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’ll bother her. She probably won’t even notice, because the two of you will probably start talking about politics or social movements and you’ll be sketching on a napkin and she’ll think it’s the coolest thing ever and realize you’re one helluva spitfire and that you’re entire body just lights up when you’re really get going.” He butts his forehead against the back of Steve’s neck, and the warmth on his skin is nice.

He isn’t saying anything that he hasn’t said before, in different words and at different times – if anything what he’s saying now is just putting all those fragments into a completed puzzle to make up Steve Rogers. But Bucky’s never said them _like this_ , never with Steve sitting between his legs, staring him in the eye through the mirror, never with this much intent behind it. There’s a pit in his stomach as Steve blinks at him that is neither elation or unease – it’s just … shit.

 “I’m one in a million, am I Buck?” Steve asks wryly, fingers fidgeting the hem of his blue button down. Bucky’s throat is dry.

“… One in a billion,” he manages, and _oh_ , _those_ are fucking butterflies.

The doorbell rings, and Steve’s gaze breaks away from Bucky’s as he jumps up in an anxious flurry – though this time his nerves seem more the normal kind. Bucky mechanically keeps him from changing his clothes, from adding too much cologne, from wondering if he should grab a book or a flower from one of his mom’s vases to give to her, and gently pushes him out the door to Peggy and her idle, gleaming yellow car. Bucky is left alone with no one to tell that he’s maybe sorta fallen in love with his best friend.

(Steve dates Peggy for the rest of the year, and for that rest of the year, Bucky keeps his mouth shut and pretends that what he feels doesn’t exist, hangs out with Steve because he always has and because he can and gets to know – and adore – Peggy too. By the time she and Steve break up, when Peggy graduates and heads off to somewhere-Europe for school, Bucky’s so used to ignoring it that he doesn’t even think to bring it up).

(Really, he doesn’t).

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, since that day on the playground where ten-year-old Bucky had punched Gilmore Hodges in the face for beating up on little nine-year-old Steve, they’d been good for each other, good together.

Which is probably why Bucky’s military career is such a clusterfuck.

He’s eighteen, freshly graduated, and has passed a few tests that have impressed a few of the right people. His grades are good enough to get into college, but his financial situation can’t – this way, his money goes to his mom, and when he’s served a bit, the army will pay for him to go to school. He just has to leave now.

Steve shifts side-to-side on his feet, quiet as Bucky packs up the rest of his duffle. They’ve argued already. Steve’s cried, and bitched, and begged, and threatened to follow. Bucky’s never been more grateful for the punk’s illnesses than he has been this year.

“I’ll send you care packages,” the blonde promises softly outside of the bus station. Hands in his pockets, he looks like he’s trying to disappear in on himself. He always does, when he’s upset. “Chocolate, cookies, porn.”

“Only if it’s porn that you’ve drawn. Show me watch you’re learnin’ in the art program with all those nude models,” Bucky retaliates just to watch the answering blush. Steve shoves him hard enough to make him stumble, and they both grin.

Bucky’s had two years to get used to the way Steve makes him feel a little too full. Two years isn’t long enough.

The bus pulls up, then, and Bucky watches as Steve’s grin falls to a completely blank expression that is incapable of hiding the devastation in his stupidly big eyes. He kicks his shoe. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he warns half-heartedly, and Steve snorts.

“I can’t – you’re taking all the stupid with you.” His attempt at a smile physically hurts, and Bucky loosens his hold on his bag enough to draw him in for a hug.

“Take care of yourself, punk,” he growls into Steve’s ear, his throat seizing. “I mean it.”

Steve clings tightly, shaking a little. “Jerk. You be fucking careful too, Bucky. _I_ mean it.”

They pull apart with a smile.

(The thing is-)

(The thing is, Steve has been a part of his life for eight years. They balance each other out. Bucky has been Steve’s shadow, his left arm, his protector. And Steve has been Bucky’s shield against life, his stabilizing ground, his bright side when shit in his life had fallen apart. They work better together, and life is better for them when they’re together – and then Bucky had walked away from Steve and gotten on that bus-)

(They give him a rifle and put him in Afghanistan and give him targets and tell him to shoot. He does, he’s good, his team is safe-)

(Without warning, his mission puts him in Russia, in a country his country is not at war with, where he trades unbearable heat for intolerable cold. The give him a rifle and they give him a target and they tell him to shoot and he’s not protecting _anyone-)_

_(I’m sorry, Steve, I did something stupid-)_

(He’s captured by people he’s not at war with, people who are angry at the deaths he’s caused, for the people he’s killed. They’re angry, they’re cruel, and he doesn’t speak their language enough to apologize as they try to break him both inside and out, oh God, his _arm_ -)

(They bring him Natalia to interrogate him. She speaks English, and he gives his apologizes to her, and she stays. He doesn’t know how long, but she’s always there and he’s always there, and her hard questions have tapered off to just questions about him, like she’s trying to keep him alive with her words. “Tell me something you’ve never told your best friend,” she urges, looming over the makeshift hospital bed they’ve strapped him to. “I’m in love with him,” he answers back, delirious-)

_(Sorry, Stevie)_

(Natalia actually goes by Natasha, and she’s a spy for the States. One day she drags Bucky out amidst chaos and explosions and shoots down people who try to stop them, because Bucky can’t shoot them himself, his arm is gone-)

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky is twenty-two years old when he wakes up screaming from the first of many after-nightmares, and Steve slips into his hospital bed and hugs him, not letting go. He hugs Bucky so tightly that he’s half-convinced his brittle ribs are going to snap inside off his too-thin body, but he doesn’t try to push him away. Not that he can. He only has the one arm.

“Shh, Bucky, you’re safe. You’re safe, you’re home. I’m here. It’s okay, you’re okay, I fucking swear, Bucky, you’re okay.”

Steve hugs him a lot. Every day in the hospital, every night in the hospital – hugs him when he’s finally released, hugs him when he brings them both back to his tiny Brooklyn apartment (because it’s been four years – Jesus Christ – and Steve lives on his own now), hugs him through every single one of his nightmares and all of the throat-shredding screams and the raging self-hate that hemorrhages from his body like oil from a cracked tanker. Hugs him for days, for weeks, for months – gives Bucky what human contact he can, what good memories he can, and becomes Bucky’s ground again.

“I can see why you’re in love with him,” Natasha says one day – Steve adores her, thanks her at least five times a week for saving Bucky’s life, which would have annoyed a lesser person but apparently this spy (who is now Bucky’s friend? Can they really be friends?) thinks scrawny punk Steve Rogers is okay to have around. And now supposedly the two of them are friends, too. “You should tell him, James.”

He blinks at her.

The problem is, it’s been four years. Four years where BuckyandSteve hadn’t been BuckyandSteve, but Steve and Barnes –

Steve’s gone on living his life while Bucky’s been trapped in his, and life hadn’t let Steve be alone.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky doesn’t meet Tony Stark (“Tony _Stark_ , Stevie?!”) until he’s almost twenty-four, despite that he’s needled and whined at Steve for an introduction for _months._

“How am I supposed to be sure he’s good enough for you if you don’t let me meet him?”

“I don’t want to overwhelm you! Tony’s … He can be a bit much for even me to deal with sometimes, Buck. I don’t, you know, want you to punch him in the face or something.”

“Yeah, lemme just punch him. With my one arm.”

“…There’s absolutely no way in hell you’re ever going to convince _me_ that you can’t knock someone out just because you’ve got one less arm than most people, Bucky.”

When Steve does finally bring Tony over for a formal introduction (and Bucky’s turned down Natasha’s offer to join in for intimidation), Bucky doesn’t punch him.

Stark’s physically a smaller man – larger than Steve, but still relatively shorter than average – but in every other way he’s bigger than the damn sun. Steve hadn’t been wrong; he’s overwhelming – loud, flamboyant, hard to keep the attention of, always talking, and Steve’s eyes watch him like he’s the most interesting creation in the entire universe. Bucky wants to hate Stark, wants to dismiss him as unimportant and scrub the man’s existence from his life, but fuck it all if the eccentric billionaire doesn’t make Steve smile in a way Bucky hasn’t seen since he’d left, doesn’t egg on Steve’s natural fire in an obvious desire to just watch and be in awe of the explosion, doesn’t stop whatever he’s doing just because Steve’s name is mentioned, doesn’t crack a dumb joke just to make Steve laugh. Fuck it all, if Stark doesn’t look at Steve the dam way Steve looks at Stark, the same way Natasha says that Bucky looks at Steve.

“Clunky thing,” Stark observes from where they all sit together at Steve’s tiny kitchen table, poking at the plastic prosthetic arm Bucky’s been refusing to wear. His face is twisted in a disgusted expression that’s not aimed at Bucky, and while Steve’s lips purse, he doesn’t stop Stark. “Horrifying – why do they try to make it look so _real?_ Ugh. How about I make you one that works? I’m going to make you one that works.”

… What?

There’s a few seconds of tense silence, and then Steve chokes out the delighted cry that Bucky can’t and practically launches himself at Stark, receiving startled, happy laughter from the billionaire in response.

Bucky _wants to hate him_ , but he’s not sure he can hate someone stuck just as much in love with this idiot as he is.

 

* * *

 

 

Problem is, Stark’s a nice guy, and for all his faults, he’s good enough for Steve.

Which is why Bucky isn’t really surprised when Stark asks Steve a question, and then Steve asks Bucky a question.

Not surprised at all – but if there’s one thing he’s learned from Russia, it’s that you can know a knife is coming at you, watch it hit your skin, and still have it hurt like hell.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s twenty-four-years-old when Natasha tells him, “You don’t have to go.”

They’re sitting together at the back booth of their usual café, one quiet enough and out of the way enough that there aren’t too many people to make it hard for him to breathe. They’re sitting side by side, both of them watching as Steve stubbornly collects everything they’ve ordered to bring back to their table.

“I think people will talk if the best man doesn’t show up at the wedding, Natalia,” he argues lightly.

Natasha snorts, unimpressed as she always is. “Screw them, they’re inconsequential.”

“True,” he agrees, nodding. His new left arm – gleaming, metal, futuristic and strange and beautiful – moves with him as he shifts his weight. “But Steve isn’t.”

They both keep watching as Steve pauses in his collection to glance down at his phone, a soft, contented smile on his face as he thumbs the screen. Natasha lays a hand on his knee, a rare show of affectionate sympathy she hasn’t really done since the time they spent in his cell. “No,” she mutters, “he’s not. But he’d understand, James. You don’t have to come.”

“Natasha,” he says cheerfully as Steve once again picks up the tray filled with their danishes and the other containing their coffees. “Like fuck I’m missing my best friend’s wedding.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky’s a month from twenty-five when he stands in the church behind Steve, wearing a suit tailored specifically for his frame that Stark had jumped to pay for, clutching a golden ring in his right that his best friend is going to put on another man.

Stark is a nervous mess of himself and tumbles all throughout the vows he’s written for Steve himself, but he’s smiling so wide that Bucky can see almost all of his teeth. Steve whispers his own back, going slow, his slim shoulders loose of apprehension the entire time. He ignores the brush of Steve’s fingers against his palm as the ring is taken away, and the (surprisingly) chaste kiss is a spike into, but not completely through, his chest.

“What am I doing, Bucky?” Steve murmurs after the ceremony, and though he’s leaning close enough for Bucky to catch a generous whiff of the cologne he’s used, his eyes are still on Stark, who is quietly talking to a brown haired man from his own collection of “groom’s minions” a few feet away. “What the hell did I just do?”

 _‘Something stupid,’_ Bucky doesn’t says, and instead firmly answers, “You got married, punk.” The words are thick on his tongue like too much peanut butter – he’s taken a bullet or three that had hurt less than that sentence. But Steve is beside him, finally gaining a bit of the hysteria that Bucky had wanted to see hours ago (days ago, months ago), and there are still times where Bucky likes to pretend that he can ground Steve back down to Earth, too. “To a billionaire, in case you’ve forgotten. And now you’re going to have a kick ass reception for that wedding, and short, dark, and annoying over there is going to show your dumb ass how to properly dance.”

The fine trembles that have been building up along Steve’s frame since the end of the ceremony slow down as he tosses Bucky a look. “ _Thanks_.”

Bucky risks swinging his right arm across Steve’s shoulders. “Anytime, pal.”

Steve gives him a scrutinizing look, too perceptive for either his or Bucky’s own good. “You okay?”

Before Bucky has to figure out an adequate answer, Steve’s being pulled away by other members of the wedding party to join Stark in the limo that will take them to the reception.

For a few minutes, Bucky hangs back.

He wants to go home. If he asks, he knows Natasha will take him – he knows Steve will let him go.

He goes to the reception and gives his best man speech instead.

Not a damn word he says is a lie.

 

* * *

 

 

He’s watching Stark twirl (yes, twirl, fuck) Steve on the dance floor to the tunes of a (authentic, really?) swing band, when Natasha pops up at his secluded table, a stranger in tow. He doesn’t jump. Much.

“James,” Natasha practically purrs, her green eyes smiling like a plotting cat’s as she eyes him. He doesn’t have a chance to ward her off before she’s speaking again. “This is someone you should meet. Doctor Bruce Banner-“ she looks toward the man she’s lead to the table, who Bucky immediately realizes is the man Stark had been talking with earlier “-this is James Barnes, Steve’s best friend. Bruce is one of Tony’s best friends,” she adds to Bucky quickly. The smirk on her face is odd. “I think the two of you should get to know each other, you have some things in common. Maybe a spark or two will fly.”

“Natalia,” Bucky growls, anger swirling, but Natasha just sharpens her smirk.

“Oh, look,” she says blandly. “There’s Sam. I haven’t seen in two whole minutes, I should go say hi.”

She’s gone as quick as she came, leaving him alone with the brown haired, brown eyed stranger.

Doctor Banner blinks at him. Bucky blinks back.

They do this for three minutes before Doctor Banner actually manages to say something, the little prick waiting until Bucky sips at his can of Sprite to speak.

“How long have you been in love with Steve?”

It’s quiet, cautious, and completely _not_ what Bucky had been expecting to hear. He chokes a bit on the soda in his mouth and swears he sees the smallest hints of a smirk on Banner’s face. “Well?” The man prompts, and Bucky’s eyes narrow.

“…Forever, it feels like,” he admits. He expects some sort of retaliation for the confession – it’s probably a taboo thing to do, mentioning being in love with one of the grooms at the wedding – but Banner just nods, his eyes on Steve and Stark, and it strikes Bucky that Natasha had mentioned that they had some things in common.

“How long have you been in love with Stark?” He softly fires back. Banner’s eyes fall from the couple to him in his own muted surprise that makes Bucky laugh. Banner is roughly the same size as Stark, quiet and trying to seem small – there’s an edge around his eyes that could be threatening, if he’d been someone different than who he is. And fuck, Bucky could use someone to talk to who maybe sort of gets whatever the hell is warring on inside of his chest. “Sit,” he invites, waving his can. “Let’s drink nonalcoholic beverages together and not talk about our woes. Ever.”

Banner eyes him warily, but the tiny smirk has softened a bit to a smile.

“I’m not looking for a replacement fuck or anything,” he adds. “I promise we won’t end up in bed together.”

Banner chuckles, low and dry, and gives him an intentional, over-the-top look over. “Wouldn’t be such a hardship,” he jokes, pulling out a chair. “But I appreciate that, thank you. I’m, uh, Bruce.” He reaches his hand across the table, palm extended. “Doctor of science and not medicine. Or therapy, no matter what Tony likes to say.”

Bucky grins, sharp, and clasps Banner’s – _Bruce’s_ hand with his metal one. The man doesn’t even blink, and that’s … that’s good, too. “James.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Most of these stories are from/cross-posted on my tumblr. 
> 
> I'm _not technically_ taking prompts, as I'd like to catch up on Morphine before I start that back up, but that being said, my tumblr prompts are always open, and any Bucky/Bruce prompts I get from there will be posted here, so ... take that as you will.


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